Jesus & The Finger Of God (part 1)

But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. – Luke 11:20  (NET)

The “finger of God” is something that makes several appearances in Scripture.  It is yet another one of those things that links together the writings of the New Testament with the Hebrew Scriptures that serve as its foundation and basis for any and all understanding.  The Gospels contain two references to the “finger of God.”  The first is the one found in Luke, as seen above, with the other to be found in the Gospel of John. 

Though in John one cannot actually locate the phrase “finger of God,” the reader is led to understand that the finger of Jesus is the finger of the Creator God because John, in his creation-and-new-creation-story tinged narrative of the ministry of Jesus begins with an overt declaration of the divinity of Jesus, with this proclamation rooted in an understanding of the implications of both Messiah and Resurrection.  The finger of God can be seen when Jesus stoops to write in the dirt during the scene in which He is presented with the woman that was said to have been taken in the very act of adultery. 

Here it is necessary to acknowledge that some of the earliest and best manuscripts of John do not contain this story of the woman taken in adultery, and therefore do not contain the story that has Jesus writing on the ground with His finger.  In fact, some manuscripts place the story at the end of the twenty-first chapter of Luke, thus interestingly putting both “finger of God” references in the same Gospel, which makes a great deal of sense.

When Jesus speaks about the finger of God in Luke, He hits upon a key theme of His mission, which is the proclamation of the presence of the kingdom of God on earth.  He offers His statement in response to the accusation that “By the power of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, He casts out demons” (11:15).  After speaking of His own casting out of demons by the finger of His God, He goes on to say “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his possessions are safe.  But when a stronger man attacks and conquers him, he takes away the first man’s armor on which the man relied and divides up his plunder” (11:21-22). 

Clearly then, this is designed to resonate with Jesus’ hearers.  Because Jesus speaks within a culture with a shared history, He is building on a foundation from which His hearers can fully understand Him and derive maximum meaning.  So rather than attempt to interpret and spiritualize the words of Jesus and treating His words as a free-floating aphorism subject to any number of flights of interpretive fancy, it is possible to gather up the appearances of the “finger of God” that are to be found in Israel’s defining historical narrative so as to put oneself in position to grasp what is being communicated.

Presentations Of Jesus (part 1)

As Jesus “grew and became strong,” being “filled with wisdom, and as “the favor of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40), and as He began to live out the life of the Messiah within a community that generally believed that the Messiah would be the fleshly embodiment of their covenant making, creative, and providential God, He would undoubtedly have searched (or at least asked for assistance in searching) the collected Hebrew Scriptures for guidance in living according to messianic expectations.  Naturally, Jesus was concerned with how to go about revealing the Creator God to His covenant people. 

That said, it is quite right to here contemplate the “suffering servant” of Isaiah (despised, rejected, suffering pain, held in low esteem/honor, stricken, afflicted, pierced, crushed, punished, wounded, etc…).  With knowledge of the way in which Jesus lived, the way He performed His ministry, the people with whom He surrounded Himself, the subversive challenge that He offered to the powers-that-be of the day (politically, religiously, socially, and culturally), and the way in which His choice of messianic presentation would lead to the way in which He would come to meet what was His presumed demise, it seems to be rather clear that He took the notion of Isaiah’s suffering servant as rather foundational for His mission. 

Likewise, the authors of the Gospels, as they lived in the early days of the church that was growing and serving humanity and enduring threats and persecutions in the wake of Jesus’ Resurrection and ascension and the telling of that story, and as they did so in a time in which oral traditions (possibly informed by smaller written collections of Jesus’ words or deeds) concerning Jesus were circulating, sought to tell Jesus’ story within the framework of messianic (king of Israel/God in the flesh) conceptions (the suffering servant being one mode of telling) that were on offer within the Hebrew Scriptures. 

Just as Jesus, to whom believers are able to look as the Creator God in the flesh, was concerned with properly revealing His God to His people, so too would His biographers be concerned with structuring their stories of Jesus with an eye and an ear to the very same thing.  This notion is not necessarily talking about making Jesus fit within a certain mold, or telling His story so as to make it appear that He is the fulfillment of centuries-old prophecies, but rather, utilizing certain portions of the accepted Scriptures (and the self-understanding that shaped, was shaped by, and governed the reading of those Scriptures) that served to inform the people about the nature of their God, Jesus’ biographers, who believed themselves to be telling the story of the Lord and Master of the whole of the cosmos, shaped their presentations of the stories of Jesus so as to align with the nature-of-God-revealing statements that were part and parcel of the writings of Israel’s prophets, poets, and historians. 

Surely, it is not at all difficult to understand that the Gospels offer an exceedingly small glimpse into the life of Jesus, so one does well to consider why it is that what was selected for recounting to and for the church communities, was in fact selected.  Most likely, the structure of the presentation of events in the life of Jesus is taken for granted, with believers enjoying the narrative on offer without ever wondering why certain events follow one another within the Gospel presentation. 

If one takes seriously the fact that Jesus lived as part of a community that took its story very seriously and understood itself according to the story recorded in its Scriptures, while also understanding themselves as the covenant people of the Creator God that routinely and often dramatically enters into history to act for or towards His people as they looked towards a great and seemingly final intervention, then this notion must be brought to a reading of the Gospels which then shapes the way that the remainder of the New Testament is read (though the Gospels and Acts would have been composed and circulated in written form after almost all of the rest of what would come to comprise the New Testament has been composed, though certainly the stories recorded in the Gospels and Acts circulated in what was likely a moderately controlled oral form before the written records were produced).

Measure Given, Measure Received (part 8)

Thinking back to Jesus’ words of “great reward,” one could rightly inquire as to the nature of the great reward that would be received by the covenant people of the Creator God for loving their enemies, doing good, and lending with no expectation of return.  Jesus says, “you will be sons of the Most High” (Luke 6:35b).  Now, what does it mean to be a son of the Most High?  His hearers would know that it meant that they would be children of the kingdom of God.  This ran counter to the then-current mindset,  because it was generally believed that the kingdom of God would be established in their land and on their behalf (thereby making them sons of the Most High) by their God’s messiah gaining victory over the enemies of the covenant people, and doing so in the manner of King David.  Jesus sets this aside, indicating that the kingdom of God is going to be established through sacrificial demonstrations of grace, love and compassion.  The Creator God’s people were not to take up arms to somehow aid their God in His work or to force His hand.  No, they were to love their enemies, and in so doing, receive the long-looked-to reward of their God entering into history on behalf of His people. 

Why is it that doing all of these things for their enemies would make them sons of the Most High?  It is, as Jesus says, “because He is kind to ungrateful and evil people” (6:35c).  This, of course, could be construed as a statement that was directed against His own people.  Jesus’ countrymen would have known very well, that throughout their history, their God had been quite kind to them, oftentimes when it was quite undeserved.  Throughout all of their ingratitude, and throughout all of their turning to idolatry and their actions against the covenant that made them be the opposite of the light to the nations and His instrument for dealing with evil in the world that their God had intended them to be (the Hebrew Scriptures have much to say about the lack of care of orphans and widows), the God of Israel was very kind. 

Jesus adds, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:36).  The narrative of the covenant people was earnest in insisting that the Creator God had chosen Israel for Himself, from all nations, and been merciful towards them in all His dealings with them in spite of the evil which had been wrought by their hands (again, oppressive activities, including that of orphans and widows should here spring to mind).  If the covenant God of Israel could be merciful to those that should rightly have been looked upon as His enemies, then why could not His people be merciful when dealing with those that did not have the advantages of being the Creator God’s chosen people---having received His revelations of mercy?

Owing to their God’s special revelation to them, and understanding that all of the other nations were at a significant disadvantage when compared to His own people, Jesus says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged” (6:37a).  Unfortunately, Israel continued to stand against and pass judgment against who they perceived as their enemies, rather than coming into union with their God’s Messiah (Jesus the Christ) and following His example of love and compassion towards all peoples, Jew and Gentile.  Because of this, there would come a time of great judgment, when the Romans would wipe out Jerusalem and destroy the Temple.  They rejected Jesus’ way, they judged, and ultimately the places that were held dear (Jerusalem and its Temple) were catastrophically judged.  It is possible that Luke’s audience would already know this to be the case, and would be in the position to hear his report from a context in which Jerusalem had already been destroyed.

Jesus said, “do not condemn, and you will not be condemned” (6:37b).  This too, was ignored, so in that day of final Roman domination, condemnation came.  Jesus said, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (6:37c).  Because they did not forgive---because they did not humble themselves, pray, and seek His face, God did not hear from heaven, He did not forgive their sin, and He did not heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).  The curse was not lifted, the exile was not ended, and they would not hear God say to them that He was going to “reverse your captivity and have pity on you” (Deuteronomy 30:3a).

Measure Given, Measure Received (part 5)

With such light cast upon the text, the potential exegete is now in a much better position to move forward in a quest to better comprehend what Jesus means when He says, “Give, and it will be given to you… For the measure you use will be the measure you receive” (Luke 6:38a,c)  Before continuing that quest, it is worth reiterating how imperative it is that one must always resist the temptation to pull isolated verses out of their context in order to meet a perceived need or to pursue an ideological agenda.  Rightly understanding the context is the effort that has been undertaken to this point. 

Remember, the Gospels are biographical, historical, literary narratives that reflect specific social settings with both sociological and anthropological underpinnings and presuppositions that are designed to make a theological point.  They are, most assuredly, not merely collections of random sayings or high-minded teachings (this is the tendency of the later Gnostic gospels and similar materials).  If they are treated as such (collections of random sayings or high-minded teachings), it is quite likely that their connection to the Hebrew Scriptures (the foundational narrative for the person of Jesus and all of His followers) will be missed, as that too (Hebrew Scriptures) also function as a grand, historical narrative that makes a theological point.  By failing to adequately tackle statements in their social, historical, cultural, and literary context, a grave disservice is done to the text and to the reader/hearer of the text.

With the points that have been made thus far (parts 1 through 4), this study is now better positioned to assist the reader in becoming one of Jesus’ first-century hearers, so as to feel the full weight of His word when He says, “To the person who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes away your coat, do not withhold your tunic either” (6:29-30), as this is part of the same discourse in which Jesus speaks of giving and receiving.  Though Luke does not make mention of it, it is worth mentioning Jesus’ directive, found in Matthew, in which He says, “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two” (Matthew 5:41).  In Matthew’s “Sermon on the mount”, this follows Jesus’ statement about the tunic.  Luke has Jesus offering this teaching on a plain rather than on a mountain.  This is not to be perceived as a contradiction, as one must be realistic, understanding that Jesus would have repeated such things numerous times in numerous places.  One needs only think of a campaigning politician in order to make this connection. 

Now, though it is certainly possible and necessary to hear such “second mile” talk as a principle of good-hearted, Christian service, those who heard it would not be thinking in such a way.  They would have immediately thought of the requirement of their subservience to Rome, and the lamentable fact that a Roman solider could requisition anybody into service to carry his gear, or his pack, for one mile.  Jesus says to not only go that first mile, but to offer to go a second mile as well.  Why?  Well, numerous reasons come to mind.  The primary reason is that any Roman soldier that allowed a person to carry his gear for more than one mile was subject to harsh discipline.  By insisting on going the second mile, the carrier put the soldier in the position of requesting (begging for) the return of his pack, thus equalizing the relationship between the two.  

Another reason would be that in doing so, that member of the people of the Creator God could make an impression on that soldier, becoming a light to him as their God intended His people to be.  A final reason could be the fact that, at the end of that one mile, the solider is likely to requisition another person for the next mile.  Thus, going the second mile would alleviate that necessity, and also enable the one doing the carrying to relieve one of his fellow brethren from having to be called into the task of bearing up under that burden.  This moves a bit afield of the scope of this study, but this third way of approaching Jesus’ statement about the second mile fits quite well with the Apostle Paul’s instruction and exhortation to the Galatians to “Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).  Paul would have been very familiar with this practice, and apparently, also familiar with the words of Jesus (“the law of Christ”), as the word that he uses for burden there (unlike the one he will later use in the fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Galatians), refers to a soldier’s pack.